It has been since November 29th that I have set up for DSO imaging. I really had to think about how to set this up again! Who knows, I may only be able to check collimation but it's nice to at least LOOK at the set up!

Yes, best of luck.November for me too.But it's from too much work, not just weather. Slow season is coming soon, though. Hopefully one more month of 55-60 hour weeks.Have new imaging equipment too. Can't wait to collect some photons.-David.

I did some wide angle last night and will do some more tonight. Despite the 20's in temp with wind chill. I would have loved to test my G3 I bought but the PM that had the tracking number was not giving to me in time for a pickup yesterday. Won't get it till tomorrow now. That stupid hoop'la switch lost it. Anyway, that looks like a great setup to take shots. William

The subs I got are nice but I'm going to have to try to bump the exposures up to at least 10 minutes to pull out more detail. I had quite a bit of room on the histogram for the background so hopefully this is far enough away from the LP on the horizon that I'll be able to get away with it.

After restacking more of the details came out that I saw when the subs were downloading, not sure what went crazy on the first stacking attempt. Weird. Anyway, here is the restacked subs showing more of the detail in this galaxy.

Now that's an astronomical coincidence. That galaxy has been on my to-do list for years as one I did in my film days, most of which, including it, were lost when part of the house was crushed by an Oak during an ice storm 23 years ago. But weather never allowed me to catch it. I tried last night as you did and thick haze made it impossible. The M2III 6.55 magnitude variable star just out of your FOV lit up the haze something awful wiping out the galaxy. So I tried tonight but again that haze returned. Not as bad but making a mess of the color data. Snow tomorrow in the forecast. Maybe I'll get it eventually.

Now that's an astronomical coincidence. That galaxy has been on my to-do list for years as one I did in my film days, most of which, including it, were lost when part of the house was crushed by an Oak during an ice storm 23 years ago. But weather never allowed me to catch it. I tried last night as you did and thick haze made it impossible. The M2III 6.55 magnitude variable star just out of your FOV lit up the haze something awful wiping out the galaxy. So I tried tonight but again that haze returned. Not as bad but making a mess of the color data. Snow tomorrow in the forecast. Maybe I'll get it eventually.

Looks like you have a good start on the luminance frames at least.

Rick

Thanks Rick! I noticed when I really stretched the data that I could actually see the diffraction spikes from that star entering the image! This was uncropped so it was close to sneaking into the frame. I may get a chance to add more luminance subs tonight if the weather holds for just a little bit!

In my case the weather won again. Totally clouded over for the last three color frames. I doubt the first three and two of the luminance can be salvaged. I have several hexed objects that never seem to be possible due one thing or another. This is one of them. Long range forecast has snow possible most night through April 9 and none of the others close to clear. The cloud gods hate me.

I'm still processing last September but things went downhill fast after that so the backlog is shrinking rapidly.

I have at least a partial chance to get some more Luminance tonight before the clouds roll in. I'll go for 10 minute subs this time and hope to pull in a little more of the faint stuff.

I was able to get an hours worth of time in on the sun today to do a Prom animation and working on that now. Even though cold at least it was sunny!

Dean, we only got a dusting of snow which is gone now, warmer for the weekend but some rain coming in. We set a record for 40 days of snow on the ground for this area!

Rick, I certainly hope you get some clear skies soon as this galaxy would look great with your set up! Some really nice structure in this one and there aren't that many really good images of this particular one. Robert Gendler has one that was an APOD a few years ago.